Review of Happy Times

Introduction

You`ve probably not heard of Happy Times aka Xingfu shiguang, and neither had I until I popped it into my DVD player. Apparently it won awards at the Valladolid International Film Festival in 2002 - Jie Dong won Best Actress and the director Zhang Yimou (one of China`s most popular directors at the moment) won the FIPRESCI Award and the Silver Spike. So there.

The plot of Zhang Yimou`s 12th film as director is handily outlined up above for you.

Video

A 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer, or thereabouts. But that`s where the good news ends, as there`s some print damage, a very odd looking set of colours at times, a very distinct lack of sharpness in many places, and some very washed out looking bits. A bit of a poor effort all round really, and I`m baffled as to how such a shoddy transfer of a recent film can be released onto DVD in this day and age. Some of it can be put down to the film stock used but when Hong Kong Legends are doing their utmost to clean up films from this part of the world (well know for their poor source prints), why is no-one else bothering?

Audio

A DD5.1 Mandarin soundtrack, which consists almost entirely of dialogue. Some music and ambient effects bring it to life now and again, but otherwise it`s really just a whole lot of talking. I struggled to see why this film required DD5.1 (the space used on the disc could have been used to bring us a better picture).

Features

No extras at all! Other regions have at least made a tiny effort with their discs but it seems like they went out of their way to keep this DVD empty!

Conclusion

A shoddy mixture of comedy (not much) and drama (on a soap opera level) which wasn`t really my cup of tea at the end of the day. It`s all just a bit too sickly-sweet for my liking, and this really rather put me off the film. Add to that the rather cheap stuff with the blind girl and I really didn`t enjoy it at all. I didn`t feel anything for the characters and was disinterested by the plot and the storyline. Maybe I missed the point, or maybe I just couldn`t find the point of the film.

Disc wise, this is almost an insult, with a mostly below average transfer and not a single extra. If you do want to own this film, buy the Region 1 release instead, which has a much better picture. This DVD is unlikely to win the film any new fans as it`s such a shoddy way to own it. You won`t have many Happy Times with this disc.